On Jan 24, 2010, at 3:40 PM, d...@umich.edu wrote: > <snip>
> Dave, > > I have been following the RepRap project with interest. A 3D printer that > anyone can make is a very cool scratch to itch. I am fascinated by the > artwork of the sculpter, Bathsheba Grossman. She really shows what is > possible with 3D printing. (http://www.bathsheba.com) Maybe the RepRap will > progress to this level of precision, eventually. I am very impressed with the > parts that people are currently making with it. I just placed an order for a MakerBot CupCake http://www.makerbot.com/ -- mainly just as a toy to share with my 10 year old daughter, who is both nerdy and arty (her self-chosen free-time activities this past Sunday were: a) drawing with her oil pastels, b) doing pcb layout on a game she is building for herself with my help, c) building cholesterol with her organic chemistry model kit) The CupCake should be an interesting toy. If you already have a good X/Y mechanism, I think just taking the CupCake's plastruder and mounting it on your mill or CNC router or whatever makes sense. > > I like the idea of using a cnc mill to vector plot the pcb artwork onto a > photo-resist board with a laser. I do not think mounting a laser would be > very difficult. There must be a low intensity laser that is in the correct > frequency range to cure the resist. You could make different apertures easily > by creating transparent slides with a single white dot against a black > background. > > As far as a cheap x/y bed, how about doing it with a cheap machine that is > massive and solid, like rock? I have been following the epoxy-granite thread > on cnczone.com for a long time: Moving a laser pointer or a plastruder around doesn't require a highly rigid X/Y, not like milling or routing. How much rigidity you need really depends on what all you want to do with it. One of the light X/Y's like the Probotix Fireball V90 might be a reasonable choice for plotting and plastruding and light routing. In other news -- a few weeks ago some of us from the robot club visited a local used machine dealer and also the local Haas dealer, kicking tires, mainly. If you want a nice, rigid X/Y.... the Fanuc Robodrill is a nice rig. :) I won't have one any time soon, but I did get checked out on the Tormach at the TechShop. -dave _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
